In the case of the Obamacare/Federal Shutdown going to the comment threads is unnecessary. Consider this screech of hatred: Government shutdown unleashes racism Roger Simon Politico 10/14/13

Starting in a (comparatively) rational on-topic way

Harsh? Look around you at what is happening to America and you will see harsh. I am not talking about closed parks and monuments. I am talking about the funds cut to nearly 9 million mothers and young children for food, breastfeeding support and infant formula.

That is harsh. Making a war against babies is harsh. And for what? Because Cruz, Republican senator from Texas, has grown so drunk on the sound of his own voice…

Simon (the chief political correspondent! of Politico) proceeds to levitate

This weekend, racism came out of the closet. (Which assumes it has ever been in the closet.)

Protesters marched through the streets of Washington on Sunday with a Confederate flag and then a protester lounged against the White House fence with one. Displaying the Confederate flag in front of a home occupied by a black family was meant to send a particular, and particularly repellent, message.

(The gentlemen in question also displayed a USMC flag but probably Simon did not recognize it).

Quite apart from the Freedom of Speech issue why do the actions of one private individual serve to condemn the Congressional Republicans?

Simon has more

Remember Samuel Wurzelbacher? Known as “Joe the Plumber,” he was selected by John McCain as his presidential campaign mascot in 2008 …Over the weekend, Wurzelbacher posted an article on his blog titled: “America Needs a White Republican President.”

“Admit it,” the article said. “You want a white Republican president again. Wanting a white Republican president doesn’t make you racist, it just makes you American.”

America has come to a sorry pass. Not because there are still racists among us, but because the racists among us think they can tell us what makes an American.

Cruz was happy to act as Obamacare’s willing executioner in the Senate, and pushing a shutdown of government to do so.

Younger readers may not catch the gratuitous reference to the crazed anti-German polemic of half a generation ago: what Simon is insinuating here is that Cruz and all opponents to Obamacare are anti-semitic.

Washington has forced whites—who for most of U.S. history would have been simply called “Americans”—to recognize, if only for now at a subliminal level, that they have common interests and must act to defend them.

This development is unimpeachably legitimate. It is not, of course, a recipe for civil peace.